Giving Tuesday volunteer call for a food drive: one avatar clip

A small group running a food drive can make a 20-second English volunteer call for Giving Tuesday, which falls on December 1, 2026, with Avatar 1.0 for about $4.90 at the default plus tier. The clip is a presenter reading a short script about when and where volunteers are needed.

Giving Tuesday follows Black Friday on Nov 27, Small Business Saturday on Nov 28 and Cyber Monday on Nov 30, so attention is crowded. Posting a clear volunteer ask a week earlier gives people time to sign up, and the day itself becomes a reminder.

What the clip should say

Volunteer asks work when they are specific. Give the date, the shift hours, the address and one way to sign up. Do not claim totals or outcomes from past years unless you can show them. Avoid the names of the families or people you serve, and avoid images of recipients.

Avatar 1.0 is English-only, so a bilingual neighborhood needs a second approach for other languages, such as a captioned still. Voice cloning is an app feature and not an API feature, so the voice will be one of the avatar voices rather than a member's own.

• Who: volunteers aged 16 and up, if that is your rule.
• What: sorting and boxing shifts of two hours.
• When and where: the date, the hours, the street address.
• How: one link or phone number to sign up.

Price

Avatar 1.0 talking video rates are per second (read 2026-10-10, Avatar video docs): standard $0.184, plus $0.245 and max $0.55 without a product image. A 20-second clip is 20 x $0.245 = $4.90 at plus, $3.68 at standard.

Creating the presenter is a one-time $0.95. Captions via the standalone job cost $0.20.

Make it work without sound

Many people will see the clip muted, and a volunteer ask depends on reading the date and place. Burn captions into the finished file with video captions for $0.20, which needs a public HTTPS URL. Alternatively use the inline captions option on the talking-video request. Those are separate add-ons, so pick one.

A sample script, 20 seconds

Aim for about 45 to 55 words, which a presenter reads in roughly 20 seconds. A workable shape: a greeting, one sentence on what the drive does, the date and shift hours, the address, and the way to sign up. For example: "Hi neighbors. Our community food drive needs volunteers on Saturday, December 12, from nine to eleven in the morning, at the hall on the corner of Elm and Fifth. We will sort and box donations together. Sign up with the link in this post. Thank you."

Read it aloud with a timer before you queue the render. The talking-video endpoint accepts 4 to 60 seconds, and the price scales with the length, so every extra sentence costs money and attention. Cut anything that is not date, place or sign-up.

Timing and follow-up

A good pattern is one clip a week before, a reminder on Giving Tuesday, and a thank-you after the shifts. Re-use the same presenter so volunteers recognize the group. A thank-you is a place to be careful: say what happened in plain numbers you recorded yourself.

For a similar announcement pattern in another community group, the post on a church bulletin avatar video shows the same setup.